House of Bamboo

Film/Video

“Has some of the most stunning examples of widescreen photography in the history of cinema.”—Slant Magazine

Samuel Fuller, one of American cinema’s great pulp filmmakers, tells a lean and mean story about an undercover Army cop (Robert Stack) battling a gangster (Robert Ryan) against the backdrop of Tokyo in the 1950s. A favorite film of Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave, House of Bamboo was the first CinemaScope and color picture shot on location in Japan. In addition to the taut noir drama, which explores Fuller’s key themes, the film is known for its stunning widescreen imagery, including a glimpse of Frank Lloyd Wright’s lost Tokyo masterpiece, the Imperial Hotel (demolished in 1968). (102 minutes, 35mm)